אהלן!
המון זמן לא עידכנו פה את העניינים – למעשה ממתי שעוד היינו צעירים ורווקים, אבל למה להתעכב על מה שלא בסדר, כשאפשר לחגוג את מה שיש?
טוב, אז בשוונג אחד אנחנו הולכים לספר פחות או יותר (בעיקר יותר…) את כל מה שקרה בחודש שלפני החתונה. זה כל-כך ארוך שהחלטנו – בעיקר כדי שלא נשתגע – לוותר הפעם על התרגום. אנחנו מקווים שתסתדרו עם האנגלית, ואם לא – רק תגידו, ונשמח להיפגש אתכם פנים אל פנים ולספר את הכל. תאמינו לנו שזה יותר כיף בגרסה האנושית!
אוהבים,
רובין ודותן
Well, Hello there!
OK, our bad, we admit. The last time we wrote we were just a couple of single people, and man, did things change since that. We wanted to write so many times, but so many other things got in the way: All the wedding preparations, the wedding itself, coming back to Israel, the preparations for and celebrating at our Israeli party, moving to Haifa, Robin starting a new job at the University of Haifa, and Dotan starting a new school year – all are fine and good excuses, we know…
Anyway, we hope you can forgive us, and accept this VERY LONG update on pretty much everything that happened between our last update and our wedding. You really don’t have to read it all but if you are really bored and your boss is not looking, please lean back, and indulge with us (also, if you just want to see some pictures, skim through this long text, and just click on the links. We won’t mind!).
Here we go:
We last wrote when we had just arrived to Atlanta, after our visit to New York. In Atlanta we hit the ground running with cake tasting appointments, dress fittings, and other errands related to the wedding.
But, after just 2 days in Atlanta we packed our bags and went with Mom and Bob to Rosemary Beach for Labor Day weekend. The weather was great and it was nice to have a mini-vacation before the craziness of the wedding hit us. Though, we do have to say it wasn’t such a crazy month; we had a lot of fun planning everything. Anyways, back to Rosemary…
The drive down was fun. We stopped along the way in Dothan, Alabama to take pictures of Dotan in Dothan. After we arrived we spent the weekend taking pictures, walking around the beautiful community, shopping, eating, swimming, enjoying the weather, and relaxing. We had dinner two nights in a row with our friends Jim and Jane Buckle, utilized the workout facility at Watersound beach, saw a wedding on Rosemary beach that we later found out was the wedding of a girl I (Robin) went to high school with, and just had a great time all around. On the way back from the beach we stopped for some disgustingly delicious fried food at Huggin’ Molly’s in Alabama. If you are ever on that road and are tempted to try it, make sure your cardiologist is on call. It’s that bad for you, but that good!
A week later, we took another trip, this time to North Carolina to see my (Robin) aunt, uncle, and cousins that live there. We had a great time learning how to Wii bowl with them (Robin is not that good at it. Dotan is awesome), eating on their beautiful screened porch, hanging out with the boys, jumping on their trampoline, and just spending time with family. Dotan and I also really enjoyed the road trip to and from NC though on the way there we hit some major rain storms (during our time in Atlanta and the Southeast in general, there was a major line of storms that hit and much of Marietta was flooded including my high school and some of my friends homes).
In Atlanta we had plenty of planning, buying, organizing, and whatnot to do in order to prepare for our wedding, but we also found enough spare time to see friends and family. We visited with Dotan’s cousins who live nearby. Gary and Michal have 3 beautiful girls that we love visiting with whenever we are in Marietta. Noam, Dotan’s cousin from Israel happened to also be in town so we also spent time with her. Gary took us to a Braves game which was a blast. As a kid I (Robin) was a huge Braves fan, but I’m ashamed to admit that until now I had never been in the “new” Braves stadium. The game was against the Mets. The Braves won, which was cool, but caused a little conflict with our NY roots. Coincidentally my high school marching band played the 7th inning stretch.
We had a lot of quality time with Stephanie, shopping, chatting, coffee dates, etc. Sadly, GanGan her sweet grandmother, passed away while we were in town. Her time was not up and it was so sad, but we were happy we could be there with Steph during this hard time and think we were able to cheer her and her family up a little bit.
We had a great Indian dinner with Kris, Brian, and Ashley and got to see Melissa for some shopping and trying on maternity clothes—she is so beautiful pregnant and we were so glad to have some quality, though short, time with her during our visit. We went to Mike Judge’s house for breakfast and met his beautiful wife Courtney and their baby Jake. I (Robin) feel like I have known them forever because Mike has told me so much and I have seen so many pictures, but we loved seeing them in person and spending time with them. Courtney is now pregnant so Jake will be a big brother soon!
Dotan’s childhood friend Calanit lives about 10 minutes from my mom’s house as well, so we spent much time with her and her wonderful kids. She is smart, a great friend, an incredible mom, and her kids are a blast to hang out with. Dotan and I always appreciate that we both have friends and family in Atlanta area—pretty funny for two people who come from different sides of the world.
We also got to spend lots (relatively speaking) of time with my cousins Michele, David, and Lesley, and with my Uncle Tom and Aunt Eileen. Michele was my maid of honor in the wedding and David and Lesley were huge help as we planned things for the big day. I got to meet Michele’s great boyfriend, Matt. A week before the wedding, my (Dotan) brother, Arbel, arrived in Atlanta, and he joined us on a hike at Kennesaw Mountain with Michele, too.
During this month we also celebrated the Jewish High Holidays. Jane Corby, one of Mom’s amazing friends, cooked up a delicious meal for Rosh HaShana. By the time Yom Kippur was here Dotan’s parents had arrived which we’ll get to in a minute. All of this we managed to do between weekend travels and wedding prep (cake appointments, design team appointment, make up trial, hair trial, dress fittings and alterations, making programs, creating our ketubah, prepping for the rehearsal dinner, getting all final RSVPs, meeting with our DJ and trio, etc).
When Arbel got in he was very helpful with last minute preparations, and we also got some quality time with him before the rest of the family flew in. Two days later (now just one week before the wedding), Dotan’s parents arrived. His parents toured around Atlanta seeing the Coke Museum, the Aquarium, Stone Mountain, and the malls and restaurants we recommended, etc. We were able to do much of the touring with them, and Bob was able to show them around as well. Some of the sites they visited on their own and loved it. My (Dotan) parents and brother were all very helpful with any wedding preparations and it was a really amazing time for the families to bond. Though they had met several times, this was their longest, most intense visit together. Mom and Bob loved hosting everyone!
On Thursday before the wedding, October 1st Dotan’s sisters Shakked and Lotem, and Shakked’s then-fiance-now-husband, Liran, arrived. They were exhausted, but the girls and Robin hit the ground running with shopping knowing they were really looking forward to the stores in the US and that their time was limited. After a successful shopping trip, everyone freshened up a bit and evening Mom cooked up an “all-American” meal for the families. Andy, Dad, Kathy, Dotan’s immediate family, Mom and Bob were there and later my Aunt Nancy, Aunt Lee, and Grandma (GoGo) joined. Delicious food and , again, great family bonding. Kathy made some killer mojitos, I made apple pie, and we just ate and talked the whole evening.
On Friday my incredible aunts, grandmother, Michele and Mary threw me a bridal shower and later that evening my girlfriends surprised me and threw me a bachelorette party. Meanwhile Dotan was hanging out with his groomsmen who had arrived that afternoon, having a bachelor’s party of his own, which was, as Dotan says, the coolest night ever to date. The bridal shower was incredible. My aunts thought through every detail. There were great pictures from my childhood on the tables, jelly bellies packaged up for the guests to take, incredible food prepared by the aunts and Mary, and challahs in the shapes of an R and a heart made by my Uncle Tom. My aunts had the idea to have every woman bring a picture that reminded them of me and at the shower they put that picture onto a page and decorated it. Each decorated page was then combined and put into an incredible scrapbook of memories. The Bridal Shower was also the first time that I saw many of my friends and family for the wedding—some of whom I had not seen in over a year since moving to Israel. Kelly, Aunt Carolyn, Karen Steiner, Nancy Rosen, Kathy Shaul, Donnee Petersen, Linda Newman, and so many more. I loved having all “my girls” in one room. I can’t thank my aunts, Michele, Mary, and GoGo enough for their thought, effort, and incredible planning. I don’t have the words to describe how much fun I had and how humbling it was to sit in the room and see so many beautiful woman whom I admire so much and who came there just for me. We got great presents for our home, and memories to last a lifetime.
Saturday was the day of the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. Bob and GoGo were the hosts of the rehearsal dinner and mom helped them plan it, coming up with a Mexican theme and having it catered by Willy’s. Mary made all the desserts. All of our out of town guests (which were basically about 95% of our guests), were there and, again, it was just so fun to have everyone in one room. Family, college roommates, camp friends, friends from Israel, friends from swimming, school, childhood, OTZMA, New York…touching to know that people flew in to celebrate with us and simply wonderful to visit with everyone even though it was a short time. JC, our camp director and rebbetzin, made a very cute toast. There was love and happiness in the room and we were on cloud 9. One of the coolest things were the videos people prepared for us. The first one is from Robin’s mom to her, the second one is from my (Dotan) family, and the third one, which is about us and our lives together, was prepared by my siblings and Liran. Since they are so very cool, we put them all here. Go get some popcorn or something, it might take a while…:
And the one for the both of us:
Believe it or not, that’s the end of this post! If you’ve actually read all of this then wow… you must be a really good friend! 
Thanks!
Robin and Dotan
